Yo La Tengo :: The Sounds of the Sounds of Science

With a 78-minute runtime and only a single track not eclipsing the eight minutes, The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is an almost meditative aquatic soundscape created for a series of short films by avant-garde filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Specializing in underwater cinematography, the French director’s short films (ranging in dates from 1927-1982) were compiled by Criterion in a collection titled Science is Fiction, with eight of them receiving YLT scores to break the deep sea silence.

Yo La Tengo :: Idiot’s Delight with Vince Scelsa, WNEW, December 28, 1997

Yo La Tengo are one of our greatest bands — but they’re particularly great on the radio. Who else would be able to expertly accompany Daniel Johnston via a telephone call-in? Or take off-the-cuff requests from listeners every year during WFMU’s pledge drive? This vintage WNEW broadcast is terrific, too, coming at the end of 1997, when YLT were winning hearts worldwide with I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One.

Yo La Tengo :: Deeper Into Deep Cuts

Yo La Tengo’s latest LP, This Stupid World, is another in a long line of masterpieces — this is a band that’s been so good for so long that it’s easy to take them for granted. But let’s not do that. As a little celebration of YLT, we’ve put together a mix of deep cuts stretching from the late 1980s to somewhere close to the present day. They’ve got a lot of this kind of thing. There are b-sides, bonus tracks, covers, instrumentals, guest appearances, remixes, live cuts, film scores … even the rejected jingle for a Coke commercial.

Return To Hot Chicken :: James McNew Reveals The Secrets Of Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

If you had to pick one album that encompasses the awesomely eclectic nature of Yo La Tengo’s vision, 1997’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is your best bet. It’s got it all (almost), careening from crunchy noise-pop to spacey ambient, from free-form experimentalism to delicate balladry, from homespun electronica to blown-out Beach Boys covers. Somehow, the band fits all these puzzle pieces together, creating a masterful whole. The double LP’s closer aside, this isn’t a little corner of the world, it’s an entire galaxy.